Small, Fragile, Broken
by Jillian1
Summary: The story of Marilyn’s past, and how it still controls her present. Post-episode for Chapter Sixty-One.


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TITLE: Small, Fragile, Broken

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AUTHOR: Jillian

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RATING: PG-13 for violence.

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SUMMARY: The story of Marilyn's past, and how it still controls her present. Post-episode for Chapter Sixty-One.

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SPOILERS: Chapter Sixty-One, and slight ones for the episode where Marilyn and Scott dance and discuss Marilyn's emotional walls and whatnot.

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Boston Public, or any recognizable characters. They belong to DEK and FOX. I'm not making any money off of them, and no copyright infringement is intended. Daryl is mine, but he's a jerk, so you can take him. ;-)

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Aisha was shining tonight on stage. Absolutely beautiful, and her voice sounded perfect. She looked perfect to everyone, but I knew what she was feeling. Hurt. Pain. Loss. Even though JT had been hitting her...part of her never wanted to let go. I know how it feels. I know what it's like. I know just how hard it really is.

I got married when I was twenty. He was my high school sweetheart, Daryl. We'd been dating since sophomore year, although there were occasional rifts along the way. I can still remember the first time he hit me. I was a senior, and it was the very end of the school year. I had been talking to another boy, a friend of mine, and Daryl got accusative with me. 

I didn't like being accused of something I didn't do, especially being disloyal. He had a grip on my arm, a tight grip. I remember I spoke back to him, all I said was, "Daryl, let go of me, stop being paranoid." He did let go, but only to raise his hand and hit me, straight across the face. That was when it started. I didn't cry, not in front of him. I can still feel the sting from his hand. I simply walked away from him, forcing myself not to turn around and look back at him.

He showed up outside my window, two o'clock in the morning, in the rain, with a bouquet of roses. Tears in his eyes, he apologized profusely, saying he hated himself. That he couldn't live without me and that he would change. I should have known better, but I was young and idealistic. I was naive. I believed him, and I remember letting him into my room from the rain outside. He held me, and I just couldn't see myself letting go of that. Here I was, loved by someone; so what if he made a mistake? Everyone does.

It didn't get better. He had hit me a few more times before the senior prom. I had to cover a bruise on my face, which was when I had learned the makeup trick for the first time. In some pictures of me on my prom day, you can see the remaining black and blues that littered my back, uncovered in the gown. He had pushed me the week before, sending me flying into the corner of my dresser. Of course, he apologized...he promised. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him *so* badly. We were voted prom king and queen. Everything was perfect, except for the lingering scars. He promised they would fade with time.

Things did change for a while after we graduated. He was going to school, a community college, but it was school. I was studying to become a teacher, but neither of us had any significant income. He was working part-time, as a cashier, and I was working on weekends and a couple of nights a week, singing in clubs. We moved in together when I was nineteen. Nobody had ever suspected anything. Everyone simply thought we were just young, idealistic kids...getting ready to face the world together, in love.

He didn't start hitting me again until I moved in with him. It was simply more convenient, I suppose. You see, Daryl was a little man. He had no real career, and he wasn't going anywhere in life. He hated that I had some kind of a future. I had the voice and the looks, but I never got anywhere. Something always held me back when anyone interviewed me for auditions as a professional singer. It was Daryl. He would get so angry, and would accuse me of flirting with the people from record labels or other talent scouts. He'd hit me, I'd end up apologizing, then he'd apologize, and then it would start again. He just wanted to feel big.

When he asked me to marry him, I instantly said yes. I was afraid to be alone more than anything. He had been there since I was a kid, a tenth-grader who didn't know anything about real relationships, or marriage, or domestic abuse. I was sitting there, staring twenty in the eye, with this boy who promised to become a man. Who promised he'd love me forever and never hurt me again. We were married just a month after my twentieth birthday.

He became horribly jealous, since I wasn't spending all my time with him. I'd work a couple of nights a week, "singing like a tramp" to other guys according to him, and all day I'd be in school. I had answered him back, saying I was only trying to make life better for us, and they he ought to try, too. That was the first time I ever had to visit the emergency room because of him. It was the first time I ever feared for my life. He had gripped my hand so hard when he was angry... I could feel it bruising. Then he twisted it, and I heard my wrist crack.

I didn't know what to do. I was spending less and less time with other people, because Daryl was becoming more and more controlling. He didn't want me to be with anyone, anywhere. He'd accuse me of lying when I'd tell him I was going to see female friends, and if I dared to defend myself, I'd end up sobbing quietly to myself in the bathroom. I never sobbed in front of him. Never.

Like when we were young, sometimes I really thought he had changed. We went about a year after that without a major incident. No stitches, no ER visits... Maybe one or two bruises, but that was all. He'd made progress, and I was actually proud of him. Imagine, proud of a man simply because he did the right thing *sometimes?* Soon, though, I started talking about getting a career. That set him off again. He hated that he wasn't the bread winner, and he wouldn't let me bring in any significant income before he did. I was just a woman, after all.

So it got worse and worse. He'd push me around whenever he felt like it, often running out of reasons. And I sat there and took it, thinking it would change. Thinking I had nowhere else to go, anyway, because he told me that. Nobody else would love me, not like he did. He made me believe his lies, that I was wrong, and he was right. Then he'd apologize, and he'd be so gentle... He'd hold me all night and whisper sweet apologies. I believed in him. He kept hurting me. Eight emergency room trips. I'd go to different area hospitals to avoid arising any suspicion. I had such an array of lies... Fell down the stairs is a good one, works for almost any injury. Hit my head getting out of the car. Slipped on ice if it was winter, tripped in my heeled sandals if it was summer. I didn't tell any friends, but then something changed.

We had been married for three and a half years. I had been pushed around, bruised, and broken. I'd received stitches, broken bones, concussions, you name it, he did it to me. I'll never forget when I realized I was pregnant. I was just about twenty-four, a few months away. I remember the tears in his eyes, tears of joy, when I told him. We were going to have a baby. He promised, he swore to me, that he'd never hit me again, that he'd never hurt our baby. That he'd raise him to respect women... That everything would change.

I knew what he was doing to me, the baby awoke that in me. I had been endangering my life, but I couldn't endanger my child. I started putting away money. I kept a bag of clothes at a friends, but I wouldn't tell her why. I just told her I may need them one day, with the baby coming and all. She didn't ask questions, so I wasn't pressed for answers. I even thought of leaving, but I didn't go. I couldn't bring myself to take our son and leave.

I will never, *ever* forgive that man for what he took from me. I was five months pregnant, and Daryl wanted dinner. I told him to make it himself. I had been in the bathroom vomiting with morning sickness for the early part of the day, and made up for the sleep I didn't get that night in the afternoon. I was in no condition to cook for him, but that didn't matter. We were fighting again, and I was afraid. Calmly, I put on my coat and went out the door of our apartment.

I walked down the hall. I still remember seeing the out of order sign on the elevator... God, that place was such a dump. I turned around, and walked into the stairwell. As I began down the stairs from the sixth floor, I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped, and turned around to see Daryl there. I can still see my knuckles go white on the railing, gripping it tightly. Knowing what was coming, but to clumsy and pregnant to get away.

"Don't walk away from me!" I still hear him in my dreams sometimes.

"Please, you promised me," I whimpered as I tried to get away. "Please."

"Don't you fucking walk out on me, Marilyn!"

"The baby. You said it wouldn't be like this. You lied," I stated.

"How dare you call me a liar." 

Slap. My face burned. Push. Punch.

"Please, stop, please, please," I whimpered, crying. "The baby, please, please."

And then I was falling.

"Pleasepleasepleaseno."

I can still feel myself hitting the ground. The cold floor of the stairwell, the thud of my stomach on the ground... 

I woke up in a hospital bed. He was sitting there beside me, holding my hand. He began to murmur promises, more apologies. I couldn't hear them anymore. Not after this. "The baby.." I whispered, with all the strength I had left. "I'm sorry, Marilyn, you lost the baby..." No. No, I didn't. I didn't LOSE anything. He TOOK it from me. I started sobbing, broken. He had finally broken me--not through my own body, not even through my own spirit or mind. He broke me by taking away my *child.* I sobbed so violently my body shook.

Then I started shouting. Calling for anyone, the nurse. The nurse came. I screamed, "HE did this to me! I didn't fall--I never fell! It was him! He killed my baby! He killed my baby! He killed my baby!" over, and over, and over. The took him out of the room, and he was silent the entire time. A nurse sat with me, and I told her everything; the bruises, the breaks, the stitches... She sat there and told me I didn't have to take it anymore. He had done enough to me as it was. I could get away. Put him in jail for a long time, and even when he got out, file a restraining order.

So that's what I did. I changed my life. I filed charges, and got a divorce. I was twenty-four, and still had my entire life ahead of me. I finished school, and became a teacher at Winslow. It sounds like a happy ending, but it isn't. Nothing has been simple for me since I met Daryl, even after I left him. For a long time I couldn't be around men without feeling afraid or uncomfortable. 

My job interview with Harper was one of the hardest obstacles I faced after Daryl. Steven is the most wonderful man I know, and when you get to know him, the man is just a big teddy bear. But he's so... Big. Strong. He could overpower me, such a small woman, in a second. Of course, I remained composed, my icy walls up around me, and got the job. That was when I took up kickboxing. I'd never let another man hurt me again. Ever.

I had major trust issues. I couldn't believe anything anyone said. I couldn't believe, because I had believed Daryl, and he lied to me. So I built emotional walls, which was why it hurt me so much when Scott pointed that fact out a while ago. I *do* have a hard time making friends. People are always shocked that I'm alone, and I try to joke about it. A couple of months ago, I joked around with Ronnie when she asked why I was alone, saying I was a lesbian. I laughed, but inside my soul ached. Alone. That's what I was, and it's what Daryl told me I'd be without him. Of course, I've grown, and these feelings are fleeting. I know now that what happened with Daryl wasn't my fault. 

I didn't date for years. Until recently, I hadn't even thought of it. Back when Kevin Riley worked here, I was going to try to be with him, go out for dinner or something... But then he was fired. Things didn't work out with Coach Williams, either. Anyway, no relationships have worked out for me since, because I'm not willing to bear my soul to anyone. Not after I was hurt. 

I know I'm attractive, but it's a curse for me. People always wonder why such a pretty girl is alone. So they say I'm frigid, cold, icy... And I am. I am. I am afraid to let anyone inside. He took that from me. Daryl took away any trust I had in men. It's only recently that I have began to truly overcome that. When Coach Williams offered to take me to Vermont for a vacation, I couldn't bring myself to say yes. I couldn't be alone with him, so far from home... I couldn't be intimate, I haven't been since Daryl. I associate it with pain now. Any time since him I've come close, I get claustrophobic and leave. That usually ends the relationship if my trust issues haven't destroyed it already. 

I was so close to overcoming these issues. Consciously, I know I ought to, but subconsciously I can't forget my past. These issues, all of them, were sinking away, nearly forgotten, when I met Aisha. She reminded me so much of myself as a teenager, although I was a bit more outgoing. When I realized what was going on with her and JT, I felt like I was there again. All of my fears came rushing back to the surface, consuming my thoughts. When she told me she was thinking of spending her life with him, I couldn't take it anymore. She was going to make my mistake. She was going to end up like *me.* 

Harper opened my eyes. I let him in--the first person in ages. I hadn't discussed my past with almost anyone, save for close friends, family, and the nurse the night I lost the baby. I let the walls I had built crumble; I let the tears fall. I cried, pounding the punching bag in front of me. Wishing it was *him*. Him and every other goddamn man who thinks they can hurt women. Who thinks it's okay. I had finally let it out.

After he left, I went to go shower off. On my way, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair was tied back, my makeup was gone, and there were tears in my eyes. I look so young, seventeen again, on the eve of my prom. Tiny, fragile, broken... I couldn't look at myself like that anymore. Not as the child I once was. I have grown, and I have changed. I have learned a lot since then.

So I made myself a promise. That I will *not* let Daryl control my life anymore. I would not let my past change my future. I would open up, just enough, and trust the people who have earned it. I will not fear all men because of what he did to me. I will make new friends; I will date. I will not leave these emotional walls up around my heart anymore. That is not me. That is my past.

I will never become that small, fragile, broken little girl ever again.


End file.
